Tale of a ghost town told in book

Posted: Monday, June 18, 2007

CENTRALIA, Pa. - Nearly a half-century after it began, the voracious mine fire that doomed this coal town in the mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania continues to burn hundreds of feet underground, uncontrolled and uncontrollable.

The fire began in 1962 at the town dump and ignited an exposed coal vein, eventually forcing an exodus that emptied Centralia of more than 1,000 people, nearly its entire population. Almost every house was demolished; the U.S. Postal Service canceled the town's ZIP code.

Centralia still beckons curiosity seekers. What they find is a ghost town like no other, a place with an intact street grid but almost nothing on it, where clouds of sulfurous steam waft from a rocky moonscape and the ground is warm to the touch.

About 10 holdouts still live here, ignoring government admonitions to leave. In a way, they are carrying on a tradition of proud defiance that is highlighted in a new book by the granddaughter and great-granddaughter of Centralia coal miners.

In "The Day the Earth Caved In," first-time author Joan Quigley vividly explores why so many of Centralia's residents fought to stay in a town that was struggling economically even before the fire started, a place with "no stoplight or movie theater, no restaurant or grocery store."

Most Centralians ignored the fire for years and some denied its very existence, choosing to disregard the threat posed by dangerous gases and cave-ins.

Why?

For some, it was a simple matter of economics. Centralians worked low-paying jobs but for the most part owned their homes; they couldn't afford to move and take on a mortgage. For others, it was a matter of pride. They had lived in Centralia all their lives, just as their grandfathers and great-grandfathers before them, and couldn't imagine abandoning it.

Centralians had "scraped for work after the mines closed," Quigley writes, and "swelled with pride in their homes, their children, and their community."

Quigley, 42, grew up in Cleveland but was regaled with tales of her Centralia ancestors. Her first visit to the tiny town 90 miles northwest of Philadelphia was at age 15, when she attended her grandmother's funeral. She began researching the book in 1999, interviewing nearly 200 current and former Centralians, government officials, journalists and others.

"It has been 25 years since people starting leaving, and I think that has given many former residents time to get perspective, to start lives in other communities and move on," Quigley said in a recent phone interview.

For Centralia, Quigley writes, the beginning of the end came on Valentine's Day 1981, when 12-year-old Todd Domboski was swallowed by a subsidence in his grandmother's backyard, coating him with hot, sticky muck but leaving him unhurt.

The incident attracted national media attention to the mine fire and led to the formation of a group of Centralia activists - including an ex-hippie, a motorcycle shop owner and a young, pregnant housewife, all of whom feature prominently in Quigley's story - who pressed the government to act.

But a sizable portion of Centralia's population resented the activists. They were led by Helen Womer, a bank teller who wanted to keep Centralia intact at all costs and who rejected both a proposed government buyout and a proposed trench that would have obliterated her home.

Disagreements over the future of Centralia polarized the town so severely that in 1982 someone heaved a Molotov cocktail through the window of activist Dave Lamb's motorcycle shop.

"There were people in part of the town who were safe, didn't have to worry about gases, didn't have to worry about the mine fire, and in all likelihood never would have had to worry about it," Quigley said. "So, for people who really wanted to stay - and that was a sizable group - if anyone came along and started talking about the fire and proposing ideas for how to deal with it, that was a threat."

Eventually, though, even the die-hards realized they were fighting a lost cause.

Still, a small group of holdouts vowed to stay. Womer was one of them, remaining in her house until the day she died in 2001. Her husband still lives there.